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Kazan Honor Stirs Protest By Blacklist Survivors

By BERNARD WEINRAUB

Published: February 23, 1999

HOLLYWOOD, Feb. 22—
Slowly and quietly, plans are being made for a series of protests over the decision by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present an honorary Oscar to the 89-year-old director Elia Kazan.

Mr. Kazan was perhaps the most formidable filmmaker of the 1950's and 60's, with such movies as ''On the Waterfront,'' ''A Streetcar Named Desire,'' ''A Face in the Crowd'' and ''East of Eden.'' But he has not been forgiven by some writers, actors and others for appearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on April 10, 1952, during the height of the McCarthy era. He informed on eight old friends from the Group Theater who, along with him, had once belonged to the Communist Party.

By planning to award the ailing Mr. Kazan an honorary Oscar at the 71st annual Academy Awards on March 21, the academy opened some old wounds, especially among writers and others who were blacklisted. At the annual Writers Guild Awards dinner in Beverly Hills on Saturday night funds were solicited by a small group of screenwriters who plan to place advertisements in The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety asking academy members not to applaud Mr. Kazan when he is introduced. The group is made up of mostly elderly, former blacklisted writers, members of their families and supporters, though none of them were named to the House committee by Mr. Kazan.

In the text for those advertisements, scheduled to appear in the next few weeks, the writers say: ''We do not wish to disrupt the awards ceremony, which is important for the industry and for many of our fellow workers. But we do ask for some minimal evidence of disapproval for the academy's insensitive and unconscionable act. Do not stand and applaud Mr. Kazan. Sit on your hands. Let audiences around the world see that there are some in Hollywood, some Americans, who do not support blacklisting, who do not support informers.''

One of the organizers of the advertising effort, Bernard Gordon, a 79-year-old writer who was blacklisted, said the group was also planning a protest outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Music Center of Los Angeles, where the Oscar ceremony is being held this year.

''This is not an attempt to keep people from going in,'' Mr. Gordon said. ''We want to convey our basic position that it is shameful to honor a man who knuckled under to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, a man who had such prestige and financial invulnerability that there was no need to do this in order to protect his own career.''

Mr. Gordon, like several other veteran screenwriters, said an apology from Mr. Kazan for naming names would defuse much of the opposition to him. But, for the moment, that seems unlikely.

''Apologize? Recant? That's a good Stalinist word,'' said Floria V. Lasky, Mr. Kazan's longtime lawyer. ''It seems to me he never said it was an easy decision.''

At the same time, Mr. Kazan's defenders have argued that it was absurd to say that he personally destroyed careers, because he named names that the committee already knew. But Mr. Kazan's critics said that by informing he gave his tacit support to McCarthyism.

In honoring Mr. Kazan, who has had a powerful influence on contemporary filmmakers and actors, the academy was seeking to divorce his extraordinary career from his private life. In recent years groups including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the American Film Institute have ignored efforts to give Mr. Kazan life achievement awards.

Abraham Polonsky, a blacklisted writer, said today: ''The issue for me is, if he apologized, nothing would take place. It would be accepted that people make mistakes. Sterling Hayden apologized. He wrote a book about it.'' But in Mr. Kazan's case, he continued, ''The point is, he's silent. So there'll be protests because of what he said and did.''

Mr. Kazan placed an advertisement in The New York Times after his testimony before the House committee, justifying his action. In the advertisement Mr. Kazan denounced Communism as a ''dangerous and alien conspiracy,'' and said that ''liberals must speak out.'' In his 1988 memoir, ''Elia Kazan: A Life,'' Mr. Kazan said he had acted honorably by informing and would do the same given the chance again.

Mr. Gordon said he was unsure how many demonstrators might gather on the day of the Academy Awards because many people blacklisted during the McCarthy era were too old to appear. Regarding the Academy Awards, he said with a laugh, ''People from all over the world will be watching this silly affair, so we'll get a lot of media coverage.''

Photo: Plans to award Elia Kazan an honorary Oscar in March are under attack. (Reuters)